well thanks for all the well wishes, 9 days in hospital with lung issues, man what a drag that was, no smokes for 9 days ! hey i really liked seeing the donohue javalin race car pix, that brought back alotta of memories, since i will be recovering and seeing doctors literally on a daily basis the next few days my contact maybe spotty but you'll hear from me soon, again thanks for all the well wishes, and hey we're on monday ..... yipee ( not )

What a cold, dark weekend. Friday evening and overnight, I was able to borrow my neighbour's generator to at least let the sump pump run to prevent the basement from flooding, but I didn't feel right using for more than 20 minutes or so. He told me to take it any time I needed it, so I set my alarm to get up every 4 hours to check on the sump. Apparently his daughter heard me at 1 in the morning and woke him up to tell him someone was stealing his generator.

We covered the freezer in the basement with blankets to try and insulate it. My daughter suggested buying ice to throw in the freezer to help (why didn't I think of that??) and the Korean lady that runs one of the town's convenience stores opened up for me to get a few bags. Gotta love living in a small town.

By yesterday morning, the temperature in the house was down to 13C (about 58F).

On Saturday, I asked my one brother-in-law who lives about an hour away from me if he knew anyone with a generator. He told me he always meant to get one, so he drove two hours to buy one and delivered it to my house about 5:00. Using that, I ran the sump pump, the freezer, fridge, and hot water tank. (The best shower of my life that evening.) I even hooked up one lamp so we didn't have to sit in the dark.

All told, we never flooded, and only lost a few eggs and some leftovers from the fridge, and nothing from the freezer. I'd say we made out ok. I'm sure there were many people not as fortunate around town.

One other note - We are such creatures of habit. For the first two days of the blackout, every time I walked into a dark room, I would flick the light switch without thinking about it. By yesterday afternoon when the power came back on, I was in the basement gathering up extension cords in the dark. It never dawned on me for a few minutes that I could turn on the lights.

Hitting the light switch is a force of habit. I've done the same thing when power was out here. Luckily, it wasn't out for more than a few hours the last time it was out and during warmer weather then. So long as the fridge stays closed and the power isn't out for more than a few hours, keeping food in it shouldn't be a problem. Mine has gone out up to eight hours and the most I've had to do is throw out some ice cream.

when sandy hit here last fall, we lost power, phone, everything, and we were lucky in a sense it was cold enough outside we could keep milk & such in a clean steeel trashcan, so we used the cold to our advantage ( but the house ) was done close to 45 degrees, we have a fireplace but since wife & kids are asthmatics i couldn't burn because wood smoke sets them off, so we just used candles, even red cross was supposed to open a high school gym for those in need and the yuppies nearby complained and they never opened it up, so many, many got sick needlessly, including us, so much for brotherly love here in philly, jeez !

Bummer, glad you got thru it ok, I know exactly what you're going thru. Here on Long Island, the power going out happens every time the wind blows, sometimes for hours or days, it's such a joke. So I picked up 6000 watt generator, had my electrician buddy wire up a 220v plug to the electrical panel and I run a 50ft cord to it from the generator. Just flip the main breaker off and viola! the entire house is powered up. I keep all non essential things off and just take care of the generator.